UN peacekeeping does not solve problems

I'm glad this was printed in The Observer and not the Sunday Telegraph.

I remember reporting from Cyprus as its incipient civil war got out of hand and United Nations peacekeepers rushed to the rescue. Hail to assorted Finns, Canadians and Irish, under an Indian general. Heaven bless the men in the blue berets. But the trouble, 42 years later, is that they're still there, that there is still an insecure peace to be kept. The berets come in, but they don't go away.

Lebanon, of course, looks next on the list as Bush and Blair try to get their act together. International communities need to do something more than talk. But then, as that disastrous Israeli strike on the UN post showed, they have long since done something. Unifil (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon - manpower 257; annual budget $99.23m; officer commanding, French) has been toiling away since 1978 on a mission 'to help the Lebanon government restore its effective authority'. One step forward, five steps back...

This isn't the only UN presence in the area. Untso (United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation - manpower 273; budget circa $29m; officer commanding, New Zealander) was the first such mission after the United Nations was born, initiated in 1948 'to prevent isolated incidents from escalating'. Not a stupendous success, you might say, before taking a short drive north from Jerusalem to find Undof (United Nations Disengagement Observer Force), 1974's continuing mission to keep Israel and Syria apart on the Golan Heights - manpower 2,027, including Japanese and Slovaks; budget $43.71m; officer commanding, Nepalese)...

More like Unmogip (United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan - founded January 1949; manpower 106; cost $3.87m; officer commanding, Croatian), designed to keep India and Pakistan calm and constructive in Kashmir. They're still there. More like my original UNFICYP (United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus) on Aphrodite's island (manpower 176; cost $46.5m; officer commanding, Argentinian). Not to mention Minurso (United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara) in the western Sahara since 1991 (manpower 458; cost $47.95m; officer commanding, Danish) or Unomig (United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia), keeping the Georgians and the Abkhaz authorities apart since August 1993 (manpower 348; cost $36.38m; officer commanding, Pakistani).

Naturally, there are some bigger, more recent postings in Africa, other UN forces striving to keep the peace in Eritrea and Ethiopia, attempting to stop 600 children a day dying in the 'Democratic' Republic of Congo, trying to heal Burundi's wounds and restore a modicum of order to the Ivory Coast. Naturally, too, it would be stupid to claim that the 67,132 men and women from 103 countries currently engaged in UN peacekeeping at an annual cost of $4.47bn don't do a great deal of good. But they don't often move on from peacekeeping to peacemaking. They tend, time and again, to freeze a bad situation in glum immobility. Their appearance stops everything, including the will to find a solution...

Has Unmogip banished fear from the Vale of Kashmir? Has UNFICYP accomplished anything but a kind of vaguely comfortable stasis that makes Nicosia and Ankara less, rather than more, likely to compromise? Worst of all, is there any remote sign that three missions in and around Israel for decade after decade have had the slightest enduring impact in the region?..

Mark C.

Posted by markc at July 30, 2006 01:45 PM